Biography

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Naomi Wolf was born in San Francisco in 1962. She was an undergraduate at Yale University and did her graduate work at New College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.  

Her essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She also speaks widely to groups across the country.  

Her first book, The Beauty Myth (1991), became a landmark bestseller by challenging the cosmetics industry and the marketing of unrealistic standards of beauty and launching a new wave of feminism in the early 1990s. The New York Times called it one of the most important books of the 20th century. In Fall 2002, Harper Collins published a 10th anniversary commemorative edition of the groundbreaking volume. 

She followed her first book with Fire With Fire: The New Female Power (1994), in it Wolf described the end of “victim feminism” and the beginning of “power feminism,” offering concrete ways for women to change their lives for the better, from personal issues to how to influence the media, corporate life and political debate. In Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle For Womanhood (1998) she examined how society’s denial of young women’s sexuality has dangerously inhibited their ability to make responsible sexual decisions. Wolf’s Misconceptions (2003) recounts her experiences (and those of other new mothers) with the shockingly business-like approach of the government, corporate America and even the medical industry to the needs of new mothers and families.  In The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from My Father on How to Live, Love and See (2005), Wolf shared the enduring wisdom of her father, Leonard Wolf, a poet and teacher who believes that every person is an artist in their own unique way. Kirkus Review called it, “Unexpectedly warm, intensely inspiring.”

Wolf’s The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (2007), is an impassioned call to return to the aspirations and beliefs of the Founding Fathers. In it, Wolf shows how events of the last six years parrallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century’s worst dictatorships.  A documentary adaptation of the The End of America was relased in fall 2008 along with her follow-up book, Give Me Liberty: A Handbook For American Revolutionaries.

Naomi Wolf is co-founder of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, an organization devoted to training young women in ethical leadership for the 21st century. The institute teaches professional development in the arts and media, politics and law, business and entrepreneurship as well as ethical decision making. The institute recently partnered with the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty to share success building tools through online training sessions that promote ethical development and empower women to act as agents of positive social change. Wolf is also the co-founder of The American Freedom Campaign, a non-partisan citizens' alliance formed to reverse the abuse of executive power and restore our system of checks and balances.  

She lives with her family in New York City.